Invented for the military, used to defend wildlife

By the time Steve Gulick arrived, it was too late. The poachers had struck, and elephant carcasses carpeted the floor. "You could step from body to body without your feet touching the ground," he says. "Whole elephant families lay next to each other, gunned down for their tusks."

The massacre had taken place in the Mouadje Bai rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), at a spot well known among local poachers for the rich haul of ivory it can yield. Since 1994 Gulick has been helping the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC) to patrol the area in an effort to thwart these illegal hunters. It has been an unequal contest. Poachers target elephants under the cover of dense rainforest to avoid being detected from aircraft, and patrols like Gulick's have to trek through the forest on foot. Killings can go undetected for months or even years, and ...

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